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(w)here am I
Born and based in Vienna (Austria), Julia Auly is a freelance artist- and a dreamer. In 2022, she graduated from Kunstschule Wien after studying under the artists Ulrich Plieschnig, Anna Stangl and Julia Maurer. Through text-writing, carving, drawing and painting, she expresses herself through different styles and materials. The main theme of her works address the most basic yet the deepest questions of humanity and connection holding us together. In her works, she plays with themes of harmony and disharmony - light and darkness - and seeks to bring conflicting elements into balance with one another.
Her first exhibition in Budapest, `(w)here am I`, is about a journey starting with a breaking point in her life, also changing her perspective in her practice. In her 'Blue Series' as you can see in the first room of the exhibition, the artist is building her net with people giving her the sense of belonging and protection. Feeling surrounded with support, love and healing direct her using `less colour but more water` in her paintings. Rather than filling the whole canvas, she mainly focused the idea behind the figures that have no gender or no special features. In her artwork `Hold Me Tight` (50x60cm; acrylic and oil pastel on HDF), Auly reflects the idea and the search of togetherness as the core of her paintings.
Since the exhibition is a glance to the journey of the artist, in each step there is a hint for what is next as she feels and dreams. After watching the video of her creative process in the first room, a life-size puppet, Mathilda (165cm; foam, wire, wood, acrylic paint) will be waiting for you in the second room to experience the touch, the feel and the texture of the journey of the artist. Auly is seeking for the balance between contradictory elements, and in her sculpture Mathilda, it is between taking control and losing it. In a world that moves at a breakneck pace, Mathilda demands a pause, a chance for human beings to take a step back and identify the forces that control their lives. The artist wants to encourage her audience to take part in processes of introspection, to reflect and reach a deeper understanding about who we really are, where we want to go as individuals and as a collective. Her artwork, giving its name to the exhibition, `(w)here am I?' (140x200cm; acrylic and oil pastel on canvas) is redirecting humanity back to its spiritual roots and defining their existence through balance.
In the third room we are greeted by drawings referring to the Blue Series in the first room of the exhibition. At this stage of her journey, the artist conveys the joy of embracement with simplistic style drawings. This journey is the journey of `being human-me`, `mensch(l)ich sein`. The journey of perceiving reality at a higher level, of ceasing to be condemned to the shadows... Therefore, thanks to the artist`s work `Hold the Light` (200x255cm; acrylic paint on canvas), you can feel in the air the feeling of freedom of being together and one, of multiplying the light.
The journey comes to an end with the artwork called `mensch(l)ich sein` (280x360cm; acrylic paint on canvas). Painting referring to Plato`s allegory of the cave, celebrates human`s being freed from shadows representing the fragment of reality. Auly calls us to a collective enlightenment through reciprocal phenomenons such as touch, healing and control. Experiencing the exhibition space with hints for more and references from the past make the audience a part of her journey. Surrounded by a dreamy atmosphere of Auly`s artworks, the audiences are having the chance to walk in their own journey as facing their own power and weaknesses as well as their own counterparts.
